Wednesday, 8 July 2015

The Inner Man - The Endogenous Personality

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The Endogenous Personality... What does it mean? What its importance?

Simply, the inner man - the man whose outlook is inward.

And
his importance? That this is the type of a genius -- whether a large
sclae, world historical genius - a Shakespeare, a Beethoven or Einstein
-- or a local, tribal, town genius whose name is unrecorded (yet who
might be the originator of some great anonymous ballad, folk song -- or a
technological breakthrough such as the spade, spear-thrower, arch or
stirrup).

Such creativity is so rare, so difficult
(far more difficult than commonly imagined) that it requires a special
kind of mind -- a mind especially designed for this kind of work (inner
work).

There need not be many such men -- indeed, there
should not be too many, since the necessary mind is relatively unfit
for the primary, day-to-day, activities of survival and reproduction of
the species. But such men are needed -- sooner or later, from time to
time.

When the Endogenous Personality is combined with a special ability we get a genius - of greatness in proportion to the ability.

But
even on its own, even with near-average special ability - and although
less-powerfully useful, the Endogenous Personality brings - provides - a
special angle, a perspective, to the problems of group living.

The
EP will stay focused on a problem longer than most men -- he will look
at the problem in a different way -- he will deploy different (more
inward) procedures of understanding -- more detached, more abstracting.
Hence he is more likely to see something new -- useful in a new and
different way.

His stance is less personal -- he stands
back somewhat -- he sees the problme in a wide scope exactly because he
sees the problem detached from his personal concerns (for instance with
status, sex, wealth) - which is how most men see problems: just a a
means to that end.

The inner man gets the greatest satisfaction from inner work - it is what he most wants to do.

3 comments:

BruceB
said...

I also prefer the land and climate in the Northeastern quarter of the U.S. – E.g. New England, Pennsylvania, Michigan, etc. I find the Western half of the U.S., the prairies, deserts, mountains, to be alien. The Southeast also seems alien although less so.I believe the South had the right to secede and to be left alone. And I find it easier to identify with the Confederate flag now since it’s a symbol of old America, a normal, Christian civilization where sodomy wouldn’t have been tolerated let alone sacralized.

Innovation where it is applied to a problem that endangers the community, or relieves the community of a constraint that allows for greater surpluses confers an obvious advantage. Hence, having a proportion of the community that have an EP is beneficial. Assuming that the occurrence of EP is more or less randomly distributed between communities, it is likely that the competitive advantage will be most realised when a community that has sufficient surpluses to afford the investment in an otherwise less productive person. On the other hand, the community which is most in need of the innovative potential of an EP is one that is least likely to be able to afford him or her - at least until some innovation occurs which relieves the community of a significant risk or constraint. Of course this also assumes that the other aspect of the EP's intelligence and aptitude allow for an innovation that is of this type rather than say a religious, shamanic or cultural innovation. We should also not discount the effect of environment in the process of fostering a budding EP to become a successful innovator. (For example, the Soviet school system was very good at producing engineers, but not new engineering innovations which required new ways of thinking as oppose to using the existing methods well. The American culture and education system, on the other hand, fostered a more competitive environment that rewarded new ways of thinking, which led to more patents and higher productivity. Hence an EP in the Soviet system was less likely to realise full potential, and may actually get into significant trouble for diverging from the established methods.)

In a knowledge based economy - such as what we have today - an EP has a significant ability to affect overall productivity through the efficiencies resulting from their innovations, and via the patents which protect the intellectual knowledge to afford investors the opportunity to realise a good return on their investment. I suspect this is why the United States makes intellectual property rights such an intense focus in trade agreements.

One thing that is important for an EP to reach fruition is a suitably vexing and engaging set of problems - well suited to an EP's other intellectual potentials and abilities. This provides the sand in the oyster, from which pearls of valuable innovation are spun.

One other point, an unengaged Endogenous Personality will cogitate on many things, and may also create innovation as a result of these mental gymnastics, but perhaps not in a way that has immediate apparent value. I suspect it is usually best to offer an EP appropriate challenges with periods of unengaged to time to just play and reflect upon what he or she finds interesting. And I do think that having a focus in more than one area or discipline can yield surprising results which are missed if the discipline is narrow.